Black Sails – What belongs to the gallows

One of the great things about hardcore and punk is the amount of new bands that we get to see each year. With current technology getting your music on tape is accessible for almost everyone. One of the great things about writing reviews is that you get to listen to loads of those new bands and find genuine quality every now and then. Black Sails is a new band debuting with What belongs to the gallows. My first thought after reading their bandname was “o boy, a pirate themed hardcore band?”. I can tell you this: I was wrong, very wrong! You might have guessed it after reading the first couple of sentences, but I’m impressed by what they deliver here.

Black Sails recorded What belongs to the gallows partly at home earlier this year. The end result is gritty in a way that perfectly fits the music this Croatian band plays. The band sounds ruined and clear at the same time if that makes any sense. It’s a brutal sound that just asks for being played at high volume. Black Sails sounds like they are the bastard child of Rise And Fall and Converge. Their music has that fucked up vibe from a hardcore band listening to often to metal while at the same time filling their songs with tempo changes and breaks. The band obviously gained a lot experience through touring. The songs are coherent and the band sounds very tight. Over that their singer is basically ruining his throat. Add to this some fitting artwork, which perfectly matches the darkness of the music and you end up with one hell of a record.

For now this is only available on tape and digital. Hopefully we’ll see a vinyl version of this as well in the near future.

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